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The issue of infiltration from the Bangladesh border had become a topic of much discussion in the West Bengal elections. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Trinamool Congress continuously alleged that it wants to help the infiltrators and hence is not giving land for the fencing to close the Bangladesh border. Now after coming to power, BJP has given land and said that the entire India-Bangladesh border will be fenced as soon as possible. In the same case, the Calcutta High Court had also reprimanded the Bengal government for delaying in giving the land. The reason for all this is that in the last few years, maximum infiltration has taken place from this border and in West Bengal itself this border is without fencing.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah had told in the Parliament of the country that the remaining fencing is in West Bengal only. On this, Trinamool Congress said that if the border land is given to the Border Security Force (BSF), then the farmers will become homeless and their land will be snatched away. Let us tell you that apart from West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram also share their borders with Bangladesh but most of the borders have been fenced.

Why is fencing such a big issue?

Due to the absence of any fence on the border, many criminal activities take place. Illegal infiltrators come to India from Bangladesh and also carry out criminal activities by visiting many states. Not only this, criminals from India also flee to Bangladesh and other countries through there to hide. Statistics of the last decade show that out of all the borders of the country, maximum infiltration takes place on the borders of India and Bangladesh.

In December 2025, MP Jagdish Chandra Burma and Dr. Sharmila Sarkar had asked questions in the Lok Sabha regarding infiltration. In this question, information was sought about the infiltration that took place from 2014 till now, the number of infiltrators and the unfenced border. The answer to this question was given in writing by Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai.

In this reply, he had said that fencing has been done on 93.25 percent of India-Pakistan border and 79.08 percent of India-Bangladesh border. Apart from this, it was also told that the India-Myanmar border is a total of 1643 kilometers long but only 9.21 kilometers of the border has been fenced.

What do infiltration statistics say?

If from year to year figures If we look at it, most of the cases of infiltration came from the India-Bangladesh border. At the same time, from 2014 to 2024, not a single incident of infiltration was reported on the India-China border. On an average, 40 cases of infiltration are reported every year on the India-Pakistan border. At the same time, India-Myanmar 855 in 2014, 874 in 2015, 654 in 2016, 456 in 2017, 420 in 2018, 50 in 2019, 486 in 2020, 703 in 2021, 857 in 2022, 746 in 2023 and A total of 977 cases were reported in 2024. If compared to other countries, these cases are about 20 to 25 times more.

If we look at the figures for the year 2025, there were 2 to 5 infiltrations every month on the India-Pakistan border. At the same time, an average of 100 cases of infiltration were reported on the India-Bangladesh border. If we talk about arrests, the number of infiltrators arrested on India-Bangladesh kept increasing in every month of 2025. A total of 190 people were arrested in January 2025, while in October 2025 this number doubled and a total of 380 infiltrators were arrested.

What is the status of fencing on the India-Bangladesh border?

In August 2025, Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai had said in response to a question that the West Bengal government had not handed over a total of 181.6 km of land despite receiving money from the Centre. In 2025 itself, the work of acquiring 229.31 km of land was going on. 31 km of land had not been approved by the Bengal Cabinet and payment for 9.57 km of land had not been made by the Union Home Ministry.

Then he had also told that out of the total 2216.7 km long border between India and Bangladesh in West Bengal, 1647.69 km has been fenced. Out of this, fencing work is left in 590 kilometers. A total of 112.78 km area is such where fencing is not possible, while an area of ​​456.22 km is left where fencing has to be done. Out of this, 77.93 km land has been handed over and fencing work is to be done on 378.28 km land.